May 1, 2009

Pizza Pizza

Seems everyone is on the homemade pizza bandwagon these days. I just saw MS today making homemade pizzas with Jennifer Garner. Must be the recession. Are we so recessed that pizza is a luxury?

In my opinion, homemade pizza runs circles around delivery with or without a recession. Other than when I was 22 and didn't know how to cook, pizza has never been on my weekly rotation. But this homemade pizza could definitely change my ways!

As I've previously mentioned, I just finished Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingslover. Barbara and her family make pizza a Friday night tradition. Her husband makes the homemade dough and the toppings are from their garden of course. This is where I first got the idea to try homemade pizza.

However I know my limits, I wasn't making homemade dough. Oddly enough my husband told me that he saw homemade pizza dough at Trader Joe's (our favorite grocery store) so Ozzie and I headed out for a pizza ingredients shopping day. I knew I had an old pizza recipe saved in my recipe binder so I decided to give it a try.

Here are the results...

Delicious right? We made two versions.

Version 1 on whole wheat dough

Ingredients:

1 package of Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough

3/4 cup grated Romano

3/4 cup grated Fontina

1 cup low fat Ricotta

2 roasted bell peppers or 2 cups bottled if you don't want to roast your own but why wouldn't you?

4 oz. ultrathin Italian salami

Directions:

Roll out dough as directed on package

In a bowl mix Romano and Fontina and sprinkle on dough

Add Ricotta in dollops

Add salami and peppers

Cook at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbling and crust is golden brown

Version 2 on plain white dough

Ingredients:

1 package Trader Joe's plain pizza dough

Tomato sauce to taste- I cheated and used TJ's canned pizza sauce but you could make your own. I want to try that someday too.

1/2 cup Romano

1/2 cup Parmesan

2 roasted bell peppers

Directions:

Roll out dough as directed on package

Dollop tomato sauce on dough

Add cheese mix

Add salami and peppers

Cook at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbling and crust is golden brown

Tomato Sauce

Fresh plum tomatoes

3/4 cup chopped fresh basil

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh garlic

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

So we loved the pizza so much, we made another the next week. Like I said weekly rotation.

1 comment:

We love homemade pizza at our house too! And actually, my husband is the one who makes it. Every Saturday night. So awesome. That Margarita Pizza looks GOOD.

I was always un-excited about homemade pizza dough too, but one time my husband needed me to make it for him and it was so much easier than I thought it would be. A few minutes in the mixer and then let it rise a few hours and you're good to go. Way easier than I thought it would be.